Friday, November 11, 2011

Two cheers for Ed

TWO CHEERS for Ed Miliband who
came out in support of the St Paul’s
protesters last weekend. The Labour leader said that the protesters camped
outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London
presented a stark warning to the political classes and reflect a wider national
crisis in confidence about the values of those in business and politics.

But, while
clearly keen to align Labour with today’s mounting anger against the capitalist
class that is sweeping Britain
and the rest of Europe, Miliband was careful not to
endorse what he called the "long list of diverse and often impractical
proposals" of the protesters

Writing in the
Observer, Miliband described the Occupy
London protest and others around the world as "danger signals" that
only the "most reckless will ignore".

"The
challenge is that they reflect a crisis of concern for millions of people about
the biggest issue of our time: the gap between their values and the way our
country is run,” Miliband declared. “I am determined that mainstream politics, and
the Labour party in particular, speaks to that crisis and rises to the
challenge”.

The
Labour leader hasn’t stuck his neck out that much. He’s got at least half the
Established Church behind him and he knows that most of the ruling class
themselves fear a Greek-style backlash and want to distance themselves from the
“let them eat cake” neo-con attitude that was the norm in Bush and Blair’s
days. And while he’s happy to lend half
a hand to a few hundred tent people parked in St Paul’s
churchyard he says nothing in support of the millions preparing for the biggest
strike in British labour history on 30th November.

Last week the Cameron
government made a revised pension offer to avert the public sector strike at
the end of the month. The offer, which would exempt those who stand
to retire within the next 10 years from the changes and gave slightly more
generous upper limits, did nothing to allay the major areas of union concern
such as increased pension contributions and later retirement. It was too little too late
and it’s been justly rejected.

Miliband
talks about the gross inequalities in society. Like some of the media pundits
or Anglican bishops we see more frequently on TV these days, he talks about the
immense annual bonuses the City bankers pay themselves while their own staff
are paid peanuts and the unemployed and the elderly are forced to eke out a
miserable existence on a benefits system that is facing further cut-backs.

This certainly
more than what his predecessor, the wretched Tony Blair, would have ever said,
But Miliband is not making a case for social justice and he is essentially appealing to the
bourgeoisie to accept reform and help those at the bottom of the ladder climb
up a peg or two.

Former Labour premier Harold Wilson
once said that the Labour Party owed more to Methodism than Marx. Wilson may have been biased
towards his own Wesleyan church but he was certainly right about the Labour Party.

Wilson, like a number of other
Labour leaders in the 20th century, was a lay preacher. Though they
were all dab hands at extolling the virtues of Jesus none of them seriously
claimed that prayers not politics were the answer. But the politics they
espoused were those of reform, social-democracy and bourgeois argument to
deride and dismiss Marxist ideas and scientific socialism.

Working people have never
got anywhere with pious motions or cringing appeals to the supposed good
conscience of the bourgeoisie. Past victories were won only through
confrontation with the employers and their state machine. Today the working
class can only rely on the organised strength of the unions to defend their
rights, now under massive attack from the ruling class and the Tory-led
Coalition government. Resistance to the bourgeois onslaught on our living
standards will get a huge boost with a massive turn-out for the pensions strike
in three weeks time. Support the protest in St Paul’s but let’s make sure
it’s solid on 30th November!